Doncaster Deaf Trust (trading as Aspire to Be)

Doncaster Deaf Trust (trading as Aspire to Be) Monitoring visit report

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Name of lead inspector: Rachel Angus, His Majesty’s Inspector

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Type of provider: Independent learning provider

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Address:

Leger Way Doncaster DN2 6AY Monitoring visit: Doncaster Deaf Trust, 25 and 26 June 2025

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Context and focus of visit

Ofsted undertakes to carry out monitoring visits to all newly directly funded providers of adult learning provision where the provision offered is in scope for inspection. This monitoring visit was undertaken as part of those arrangements and as outlined in the ‘Further education and skills inspection handbook’, especially the sections entitled ‘Monitoring visits’ and ‘Monitoring visits to providers that are newly directly publicly funded’. The focus of these visits is on the themes set out below.

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Context and focus of visit

Doncaster Deaf Trust is a charitable trust which provides specialist education and care services for people who are deaf or have other communication difficulties and learning disabilities. It provides adult learning programmes as Aspire to Be, funded by South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority. At the time of the inspection, there were 61 clients with learning difficulties and/or disabilities or other barriers to learning on courses designed to prepare them for employment.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders have created an innovative curriculum offer to prepare adults in South Yorkshire who are deaf or have other learning difficulties and/or disabilities or barriers to learning (LDD) for work in occupational areas where there is high demand. These areas include the hospitality industry, adult social care, retail, warehousing and NHS support services. Staff equip their clients with job-specific knowledge as well as relevant employability and digital skills. Job coaches also support clients to improve their self-confidence and motivation.

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Reasonable progress

Managers work well with organisations such as Jobcentre Plus to ensure that they recruit clients who will benefit from the training that they provide. They have implemented effective transition and support arrangements for clients. Staff maintain contact and offer support to their clients for up to six months after they secure work so that they have the best possible chance of remaining in employment. Clients rightly value this support.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders work with their employer partners to make sure that they provide high- quality physical resources to simulate the working environment. For example, job coaches provide hospitality training in a realistic hotel room, replicating those found in a well-known chain of hotels. Managers have recently created a hospital ward in which clients learn about the tasks that they will complete if they secure a cleaning position in a hospital. Many of these work areas have been jointly set up with Monitoring visit: Doncaster Deaf Trust, 25 and 26 June 2025 colleagues from industry, such as a warehousing workshop that matches closely the actual factory layout where successful clients will work. Clients experience working at a processing and returns bench and learn how to use boxes, cages and trolleys. Consequently, clients are well prepared for the work opportunities offered by employers.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders and managers rightly recognise that they need to establish more rigorous quality assurance arrangements to identify accurately the strengths and weaknesses of their provision. They have incorporated the Aspire to Be provision into the trust’s quality reporting structure and are using the wider trust expertise to develop their own procedures. These arrangements are in their infancy.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders work carefully with employers to design the content of the curriculum. The curriculum for each occupational area contains relevant and useful topics that clients need to know to be able to work with specific employers. For example, job coaches help clients who wish to gain employment in the NHS to learn about the chemicals used in cleaning and the appropriate dilutions for these. Clients also learn how to stock a cleaning trolley using a colour-coding system.

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Reasonable progress

Job coaches provide effective support to clients to help them to overcome their barriers to employment such as anxiety or the impact of their disability or learning difficulty. They work with clients to explain and illustrate the types of techniques they can use for effective job searching. For some of the vacancies, job coaches arrange interviews at the Aspire to Be offices so that clients feel confident to present themselves and demonstrate their suitability for work. Job coaches also provide useful information to clients about shift patterns, transportation and canteen arrangements to help to prepare them for the realities of work. A high proportion of clients who attend the training go on to secure employment.

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Reasonable progress

Staff carefully consider their clients’ starting points when planning their coaching. This includes clients’ motivation to find work, their previous work history and the type of job role they would like. Job coaches rapidly progress clients who are ready for work through the training and into an interview process, so that they are not delayed from starting work. Those who need greater support before moving into work are supported well to develop their skills and confidence over time. However, staff do not record precisely the knowledge that clients gain from attending the course. This means that clients are unable to identify well enough where they still need to improve their skills. Monitoring visit: Doncaster Deaf Trust, 25 and 26 June 2025 Job coaches use questioning and practical tasks to assess their clients’ understanding of what they cover in coaching sessions. For example, for those clients training to

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Reasonable progress

work in the NHS, job coaches assess whether they identify the correct products to use for different cleaning tasks. When clients miss areas when cleaning or their practice could be improved, job coaches identify this so that clients can repeat the task correctly.

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Reasonable progress

Staff teach clients to understand the specific risks associated with working in busy and hazardous environments. Coaches take time to explain to their clients the health and safety and legal obligations of employers. This helps to reassure clients with LDD that they will be safe and reduces their anxiety about moving into the workplace.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders and managers have in place useful policies and procedures so that clients are kept safe. One of the trustees maintains oversight of safeguarding, including of the safer recruitment records which they monitor frequently. However, leaders do not provide a separate update to the trustee for Aspire to Be in the way that they do for the other provision within the trust. Monitoring visit: Doncaster Deaf Trust, 25 and 26 June 2025 regulates and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council

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Reasonable progress

children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Reasonable progress

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Reasonable progress

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Reasonable progress

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T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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